1. Field
The present invention relates to office communication and automation systems, and more specifically, to automated systems, methods and computer products for scheduling meetings.
2. Background
Meetings among employees are essential to conducting business. Nearly all businesses and organizations rely on meetings to some extent to plan projects, conduct operations, report results, and make business decisions. Voicemail and email are very useful business tools that make communications more convenient. However, the convenience of voicemail and email cannot replace real-time interfacing between employees in many situations. For this reason, there will always be a need to schedule and conduct meetings. Yet, the busy schedules and time constraints of today's workers make scheduling a meeting an increasingly difficult task. When setting up a meeting it can be hard to find a time for scheduling the meeting that is open on all of the calendars of the invitees to the meeting.
Automated tools for setting up meetings such as MicroSoft Outlook™ include some limited features for coordinating the schedules of individual attendees and working out scheduling conflicts. For example, to schedule a meeting using Outlook™, an email is sent out to all invitees with a proposed time for the meeting. In some versions of Outlook™, an individual can use their calendar function to detect scheduling conflicts. However, in order to accept the meeting invitation, the individual may have to cancel any other conflicting meetings on their schedule. Other tools for scheduling meetings are available, including Apple Automator™ and Google's™ calendar feature. These conventional tools can also be used to schedule meetings for a group, but they too provide little flexibility in resolving scheduling conflicts for the individuals invited to the meeting.
What is needed is a more flexible and efficient tool for scheduling meetings that provides individuals with options for resolving schedule conflicts.